Obama To Get Secure BlackBerry 8830 191
CWmike writes "President Barack Obama is set to receive a high-security BlackBerry 8830 soon, The Washington Times reported today. The device is said to be in the final stages of development at the National Security Agency, which will check that its encryption software meets federal standards. It might not be ready for months. It was reported that Obama will be able to send text and e-mail messages and make phone calls on the device, but only to those with the secure software loaded on their own devices. The list includes First Lady Michelle Obama and top aides. The security software is made by Genesis Key, whose CEO, Steven Garrett, is quoted as saying: 'We're going to put his BlackBerry back in his hand.' The Sectera Edge was pegged in January by analysts as the top device choice because of its reputation for secure data communications when used by other federal workers. And there are many reasons why Obama might have been told 'no' on his BlackBerry. But Obama may wish he had chosen a Sectera if BlackBerry has more outage problems like its latest last week, which meant no mobile e-mail for hours across the US."
If they can do it for him (Score:5, Interesting)
I am in line waiting for similar software to drive any portable device for communication I want to use.
So in other words, how long before laws are drafted keeping the good stuff out of our hands under the guise of it only aids criminals? I can see it all now, a new email bill of rights that somehow strips me of the ones I need or have.
I like the idea of the President having access to good, safe, and reliable, technology like this. I just hope that trickle down occurs.
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So in other words, how long before laws are drafted keeping the good stuff out of our hands under the guise of it only aids criminals?
They tried that [wikipedia.org] back in the 90s and it didn't go so well. There's nothing stopping you from using encryption on your cellular phone as it stands now. Back when I was in GSM land I was kind of hoping to get my hands on an OpenMoko and design an encryption system for SMS. It wouldn't be that hard to implement for secure text messaging. Voice may be harder but should still be doable by someone with the right skill set.
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Back when I was in GSM land I was kind of hoping to get my hands on an OpenMoko and design an encryption system for SMS. It wouldn't be that hard to implement for secure text messaging. Voice may be harder but should still be doable by someone with the right skill set.
What's wrong with encrypted VOIP and email? Tried, tested, and the provider can't fuck it up for you.
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If you encrypt SMS the message will simply be too long. Email on the other hand does not suffer from such limitations.
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If you encrypt SMS the message will simply be too long. Email on the other hand does not suffer from such limitations.
To encrypt you need to compress. The encrypted message could easily be smaller than the plain text.
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I am in line waiting for similar software to drive any portable device for communication I want to use.
What are you talking about?
We already have something like that [wikipedia.org]. It won't run on devices with hardwired OSes of course, but nothing else will, either. Did I miss your point?
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It had better, as we are paying for it.
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No, we didn't. What are you 5 years old.
This is an existing product that is being evaluated for use by the President. By this logic, if the President wanted to use GCC and compile Ubuntu on his laptop, and the NSA evaluated those two products, then we can claim to have ownership of GCC and Ubuntu.
I had mod points, but you hear convoluted logic like yours expressed on Slashdot all the time.
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If anyone is interested in helping out, there is the talklock project. [sourceforge.net] I started it a little over a year ago to do voice encryption for Blackberries, and as many mobile Java devices as possible.
Most of the pieces are there now, but it is not complete. There are screenshots [sourceforge.net] available and it is GPL.
It can record audio and play audio, and send and receive audio from a web server. I even hacked together a shell script on my Mac to listen to the audio so I could test the code with only one phone :)
I agree, th
CrackBerry: Just say no ;) (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been successfully resisting efforts by my boss to give me a Blackberry for the last two years. I've seen what it does to co-workers and friends who have them and have no desire to spend half of my next vacation (or weekend or day off) responding to e-mails that could wait. If it's really important they'll call me. If it's not then I guess they can figure it out on their own. I know that some people find them useful but I don't count myself as being one of them.
As an aside, TFA says that the NSA is reviewing the security software. I wonder if they got access to the rest of the source-code and reviewed all of the other software? What does full time encryption do to the battery life and response time of the blackberry? I also wonder if the same restrictions that apply to other Federal workers regarding electronic devices will apply to his Blackberry? Will it be clipped to his waist when he's in the situation room [wikipedia.org] dealing with the next international crisis? Or will he have to keep it out of secured areas?
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I have a cousin who is addicted to his CrackBerry. His wife gave him an ultimatum: "Either you take THAT or ME on our next vacation. Not both."
As an aside, TFA says that the NSA is reviewing the security software. I wonder if they got access to the rest of the source-code and reviewed all of the other software?
I wonder if the NSA has the opportunity to build in back doors, so that they can snoop on the President's communication?
56 bit encryption, indeed.
Re:CrackBerry: Just say no ;) (Score:5, Funny)
Well don't leave us in suspense. What did he decide?
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I hope your cousin has managed to resist the urge to check his BB during sex. Don't laugh, it's a common thing.
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I had a Blackberry Storm foisted upon me (something about making the numbers up to get the next data bundle). But from the outset I made it very clear that outside of working hours the notification options will be set to Phone Calls Only (i.e. no tones or vibrate on texts and e-mails) and Iâ(TM)ll check e-mails at my leisure.
Without being to hostile or overzealous I find myself constantly having to remind people that e-mail is an asynchronous communications medium.
And as for the Storm - nice screen goo
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But from the outset I made it very clear that outside of working hours the notification options will be set to Phone Calls Only (i.e. no tones or vibrate on texts and e-mails)
I thought about that but I'd have two problems with that:
1) My network monitoring setup sends me SMS'es if it detects problems. Silencing these notifications would defeat the purpose of having them.
2) It would destroy the utility of SMS for personal reasons. I don't want to carry separate phones for work and personal (I've already got enough crap hooked to my belt without adding a second phone) so I'd have to give up on SMS from my friends or deal with notifications for stuff that I don't care about.
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1) My network monitoring setup sends me SMS'es if it detects problems. Silencing these notifications would defeat the purpose of having them.
The settings on a Blackberry allow you to silence email without affecting SMS.
There's no simple solution to issue 2, though.
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The device has a power button, don't be weak and turn it off.
That kind of defeats the point of having a cell phone, doesn't it? My cell phone is my only phone. I don't feel like I should have to cut off all of my friends just to avoid stupidity from the office, nor do I want to carry separate devices for work and pleasure.
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People will go to ridiculous lengths to avoid taking personal responsibility anymore it seems.
Of course it can't be the stupid person's fault..it has to be that evil Blackberry possessing their soul.
And turn it off? Ohhh, no! can't do that..might miss an important viagra email...from a Nigerian Prince!
At an earlier job, one of these obnoxious devices was foisted on me. It never made sense to me, as nothing in my job was 'time critical', but 'everybody is going to this' was the reason. I tried warning them
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When you don't have the ability to be contacted by email 24/7, people don't tend to expect you to be available 24/7.
Beyond that, some people have a hard time removing their brain from work mode. Personally, I don't want to think about work until I go in the next day. Having a pager handy kind of forces the issue
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They are a nice device for personal use. I'd never get one for work, though, as it is then expected you are checking the thing all the time. No thanks. Like you said, the culture around those things is wrong, and if it's important, they should call you.
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I couldn't agree more.
I don't do that shit. If someone wants me to work like that they can very well call me and talk to me. E-mail is too easy.
I have realized that work doesn't go away, there is always more, if I worked after hours that is all I would do. It will still be there tomorrow when I come in to work.
I have also realized that 99.9% of the time when there is an emergency, and is needed yesterday, etc... it means that someone didn't plan, or didn't do their own work. It is not my job to bail them ou
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I've seen what it does to co-workers and friends who have them and have no desire to spend half of my next vacation (or weekend or day off) responding to e-mails that could wait.
You can always turn the thing off. "Gee, I must have been out of range!" Or just not check the thing more than every couple of hours. Your co-workers and friends' problem is not that they have BBs; its that they get all compulsive about keeping up with them.
Mind you, I won't ever get one either. Not because they're intrusive away from work, but because they're distracting at work. Some of us just aren't that good at divided attention tasks. Obviously we're wired much different from people who carry BBs, not
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Employers give out Blackberrys so they can contact people when they are not at work. If you tell them (as I did) that it will always be off outside of work hours, they won't give you one.
The thing is, it doesn't bother me being contacted when I'm not at work if the situation warrants it. With e-mail though it's been my experience that the situation rarely warrants it. People use e-mail for all manner of stupid questions that either aren't that important or that they could answer themselves if they used the time it took to write the e-mail to research the problem on their own.
If it's important enough to warrant bothering me when I'm out of the office then it's important enough for a phone
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I agree with the others here. (sorry, bud).
The boundary that you are on vacation, or 'not on-call', or even simply not required to respond to e-mails for, as you put it, if the situation warrants it, is just too simple to fix. I'm sure they send e-mails now, that you don't respond to (because your present mobile solution doesn't offer it), unless you spend your days off surfing your mail and responding.
full disclosure: I have a blackberry 8830, and I am one of two admins (and we are the only 2 with UNIX res
More outage problems? (Score:2, Insightful)
6821 years? (Score:3, Funny)
From the title I thought it would take 6821 years to develop a secure BlackBerry.
Will all those that he texts with (Score:1, Redundant)
also get secure Blackberries?
(I assume his immediate family will, as well as WH coworkers, but friends and so on?)
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Re:Will all those that he texts with (Score:5, Funny)
Barackberry (Score:2)
Usefulness limited? (Score:2, Interesting)
but only to those with the secure software loaded on their own devices
How useful is the phone then really, if you can not even call the dry cleaners down the street? Or maybe Obama only communicates with 5 or so people?
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I wonder who he's got for his Favs!
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I think this is less about having a phone in his pocket (it's not like he's not surrounded by people who can give him one) then it is about being able to send quick texts to his underlings. One hopes that he doesn't get too obnoxious that way!
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Unless you're Rush Limbaugh you would want him to manage the Federal Executive branch at least as well.
I'm not Rush Limbaugh.
I hope Obama fails with a nice new 8830 secure Blackberry. The sooner the failure, the sooner a replacement.
Um, last year (Score:5, Insightful)
The BlackBerry network does have outages from time to time. But the linked article is from April 18, 2007!
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Outage (Score:4, Funny)
Uh oh (Score:4, Interesting)
Uh oh.
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What could possibly go wrong? ;-)
Well, unlike in the recent past, at least this way there will be back ups of Presidential e-mails available from the NSA when Congress or the DOJ ask for them....
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Well, if it's /. hackers, then maybe some good will come of him being 'Rick-Rolled' several times a day...what 'good', I don't know.
Maybe CmdrTaco should get in the /.bunker soon....
Who cares about a Blackberry outage? (Score:2)
"...if BlackBerry has more outage problems like its latest last week, which meant no mobile e-mail for hours across the US."
Boy, anyone remember back in the day when Presidents used to get their information from Generals and top aides holding very flat pieces of compressed wood called paper?
Point here is if ANYONE could get away with a Blackberry outage for "hours across the US", it SHOULD be that man.
What's the big deal? (Score:5, Interesting)
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A small quibble: the NSA-certified PDAs that military people use are not Blackberries, they're Windows-based PDAs. Same basic functionality, though.
Anyway, here's the big deal: those secure PDAs are used by many federal employees, but the President has never had one. The Secret Service doesn't like the idea of a device that might be used to track the guy they're protecting. More importantly, the President's lawyers don't like him to use any electronic media, even for non-governmental communication. They don
Can the iPhone be made as secure? (Score:1)
I'm not trolling, just asking an honest question because I'm genuinely curious.
If Obama were to choose an iPhone, could it be made as secure as the solution implemented for his Blackberry?
As far as I know, the iPhone doesn't yet match the Blackberry in security and enterprise users, even though some Fortune 500 companies have started using it.
Why does it need to be secure? (Score:5, Funny)
Every communication will be something like this:
Advisor: Mr. President, there's a prob with X, WTF shuld we do?
President Obama: LOL! Throw money at it.
Advisor: Good call, Mr. President. Culd u b more specific?
President Obama: *sighs* Create a new "Czar of X" over the new "Bureau of X", silly.
Advisor: OMFG, BHO ROCKS!
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Great. Political argument via ignorant stereotype. I wish right wingers would grow up all ready and give us arguments based on their ideas instead of making fun of people who disagree with them. Who knows, you might actually convince people, instead of pissing them off. Try to remember why the U.S. elected a leftie President, even though most voters are pretty conservative.
There's a serious question behind your stupid babble, so I might as well answer it: it's not about privacy, it's about security. If a ha
Defense Contractors Already Have These... (Score:2)
That's good. We were worried up here. (Score:2)
"Buy American" (Score:2)
I wonder if any Republicans will make hay out of the fact that Blackberries are made by a Canadian company, and the President is unpatriotic for using one.
It will be interesting to watch Metcalfe's Law in (Score:2)
That's the one that says that the utility of a network is proportional to the square of the number of things (devices, people, services) connected to it.
I suspect that President Obama (isn't it interesting how many people seem to be avoiding using that 2 word phrase in writing about him?) is about to discover that the useful thing about a BlackBerry isn't the *device*, it's the *people at the other end*.
Whom he won't have.
Obama to get bugged BlackBerry (Score:2)
Really, I would have thought it would be less secure [schneier.com] after the spooks got their hands on it. As such I have corrected the title.
iPhone vs. Crackberry - an issue of encryption (Score:2, Informative)
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It's just a matter of time, according to Apple, that Obama and the White House IT Dept. might consider trading in his Crackberry for the much more powerful and user friendly iPhone.
It seems a bit unfair to decry the BlackBerry 8830 as being inferior in power to the iPhone, when it was being sold long before even the first-generation iPhone was available. Compare it to a Bold or a Storm.
How much is this going to cost? (Score:3, Insightful)
If it is relatively cheap, then ok, cool. The President wants a Blackberry and it won't be too expensive. No problem.
But that isn't what it sounds like. Take months? How many man hours at what price per hour will be required so he can read his fan mail now instead of 30 minutes later? If the price is going to be exorbitant and this is little more than a vanity item, then no. Just no.
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It's a high-security BB. He won't be allowed to make a call or text message on the device except to someone on the approved list.
If you ask me, on the surface, it sounds more like a parental control feature than a legitimate security feature.
The President is not affected by BB outages (Score:3, Insightful)
Unlike the rest of us, if the president can't make a call on his BB, there are a handful of high-security folks around that can make the call for him on some other device.
E-Mail is not really the issue (Score:3, Interesting)
TFA makes a big deal about the hackability and record-keeping issues surrounding e-mail. But that's really a non-issue, as RIM supports numerous corporate customers who have similar requirements. Its possible to configure a Blackberry to operate through a private enterprise e-mail system rather than the Canadian NOC. This answers many of the issues with record retention, encryption, and authentication (closely related to encryption).
The one valid issue is the ability to track the device's location. Even without cracking message or voice encryption, any device using a cellular network can be located rather easily. I'm not certain whether the Sectera Edge uses a government (military?) network different than the commercial ones. If not, it will be as easy to follow as any cheap phone.
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From the sounds of this, he could use any device that supports public key crypto for messages.
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Mr Obama used a BlackBerry during the campaign---I assume thus that he chose to use a BlackBerry.
Also, you know there is a berry called a blackberry right? And blueberries (Celts)?
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Both actually, the single fat coloured mammy sitting at home and so forth is spending part of her welfare check to be one of your clients/customers, and that thanks to her money she's spending at your business that you can thrive and pay your 14 employees.
Now of course you probably stimulate more than she does, because if you're as successful as you make yourself sound, you have more money to spend, and therefore stimulate more. But the welfare check is stimulus money in that that's what allow people on wel
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But does it stimulate the economy more than it would have done if it had been left in the original taxpayer pocket?
It's the broken window fallacy.
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No it's not, although lots of people mistakenly think it is. The ramifications/implications of those things are pretty deep, even deeper than in the broken window fallacy, but in the case of a welfare mom with 4 kids, the main difference is that by giving her more money she'll give better food, a better health but more importantly a better education to her 4 children, the difference being ultimately that these children will grow up to be more qualified and thus produce more value/wealth, but also move up in
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she might spend that same money more fully and more quickly, thus stimulating faster.
It's not the spending that stimulates, but making money by creating something of value. The money exchange is just an arbitrary measure of that value.
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Re:Racism is Rampant... (Score:4, Insightful)
but in the case of a welfare mom with 4 kids, the main difference is that by giving her more money she'll give better food, a better health but more importantly a better education to her 4 children, the difference being ultimately that these children will grow up to be more qualified and thus produce more value/wealth, but also move up in social classes.
What the heck are you basing this on? It's been my experience that welfare moms beget welfare children. And no, I'm not just parroting Rush Limbuagh. I've spent the last five years working for an agency in the human services field and my SO is a social worker with 13 years of experience. I've yet to see welfare moms produce anything other than welfare children. The welfare system in my experience creates a cycle of dependency that few people are able (or willing) to break out of.
Re:Racism is Rampant... in my nose (Score:5, Insightful)
Give this man a point.
Moreover - blame politicians for ENGINEERING a political class totally dependent on his hand. It's brilliant - voters who depend on government assistance have practically no choice but to vote for the guy. And yes - I'm looking at republicans AND democrats.
Can anyone explain how congress can get a measly 13% approval rating and still re-elect over 90% of it's members in the same month?
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Can anyone explain how congress can get a measly 13% approval rating and still re-elect over 90% of it's members in the same month?
Gerrymandering?
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Clearly people disapprove of other district's congress-people.
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guess what, social workers tend to deal with the problem cases, the ones that don't manage, who can't cope, and occasionally people smart enough to know that a social worker going to bat for them will improve their situation. Your not seeing the people who struggle day to day maybe get a little help from family when it gets really bad but your just lumping them all in together because you have a job.
What are people supposed to do when there is no work, the industry drops away and theres 500, 1000 p
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Now those workers are just welfare scroungers in your eyes.
sure it might make you feel better to debase them
Umm, where the hell did I say that? All I did was question the GP's assumption that welfare lifts the children of those on it out of poverty. You don't have to assume that I look down upon the people who use it just because I question the wisdom of the way the system works.
but they are just as human as you are and your one wage check away from being one of them.
Umm, no, I have savings and could manage to survive for upwards of a year if I lost my job, even without unemployment benefits. I opted to save my extra money during the economic boom instead of blowing it away on material possessions
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What the heck are you basing this on? It's been my experience that welfare moms beget welfare children. And no, I'm not just parroting Rush Limbuagh. I've spent the last five years working for an agency in the human services field and my SO is a social worker with 13 years of experience. I've yet to see welfare moms produce anything other than welfare children. The welfare system in my experience creates a cycle of dependency that few people are able (or willing) to break out of.
you state its your experience that welfare moms beget welfare children ,
I've yet to see welfare moms produce anything other than welfare children,
The welfare system in my experience creates a cycle of dependency that few people are able (or willing) to break out of.
Those are your own words, they don't sound positive do they? They don't suggest that this is any fault but their own, even in your reply you state, to paraphrase "I'd be ok i've got savings behind me" implying your not like they are. Do you think
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The ramifications/implications of those things are pretty deep, even deeper than in the broken window fallacy, but in the case of a welfare mom with 4 kids, the main difference is that by giving her more money she'll give better food, a better health but more importantly a better education to her 4 children, the difference being ultimately that these children will grow up to be more qualified and thus produce more value/wealth, but also move up in social classes.
Wishful thinking at its finest. Yes, it does happen, but that's easily the exception to the rule. If that actually worked in practice, then social classes would more or less dissolve in a generation or two; or, at least, you wouldn't see nearly the level of similarity we currently do between generations of a single family.
From what I've seen, most lower-class people tend to be in that situation because they can't manage their money to save their life, not because of their lower-paying jobs. I'm doing (ve
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Hah, such naivete. Giving welfare mom more money does not necessarily mean a better life for her bastard offspring. It means she can get a new TV, dvd player or drugs...
Just look at how the welfare system is abused in NY State. The more offspring you have, the more money you make. Then the state pays for your children to have healthcare and you get WIC and you get a free house...
It sure pays to be a unemployed mooch around here.
Do you have evidence, or just a caricature of a welfare queen that was painted for you by Rush Limbaugh?
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Actually it really became popular with Ronald Reagan and his Cadillac-driving welfare queens [wikipedia.org]
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Hah, such naivete. Giving welfare mom more money does not necessarily mean a better life for her bastard offspring. It means she can get a new TV, dvd player or drugs...
Your cynicism blinds you to the greater issue here - that giving welfare mom more money for sitting on her ass doing nothing is teaching her kids to do the same.
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And if she didn't get the welfare money, what other sources of money are available?
She could get a job.
She could also become a prostitute. She could become a thief. She could deal drugs. She could also have her kids steal, whore, and deal (It's happened.)
What would that teach her children?
A welfare check won't solve her problems, but I'm not so sure that cutting her off would be any better for her, her children, or society in general. Better solutions are needed.
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I think it's safe to say that people who spend their lives on welfare and thereby teach their children that you can get free money by doing nothing are pretty damn lazy, yes. People that use the welfare system as it's intended (making sure you don't starve or freeze to death while you're between jobs) tend not be what most people would consider lazy, and I think most taxpayers can sympathize to at least some degree.
There's absolutely no need to bring racial stereotypes into the picture - it just makes you
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I'm not sure it's the broken window fallacy at all. The broken window fallacy requires that value be destroyed from the system in order to 'generate' value (which tends to lead to a total loss of value).
However, in the case of this taxation, what value is being destroyed?
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Due to the way the banking system works, the invested dollar will be spent several times (and counted as a whole dollar each time). It will be deposited, loaned out, re-deposited, re-loaned, invested in something or other, re-deposited, (repeat numerous times), and ultimately spent (probably as somebody's salary).
As aid to a lower-income person, it will be spent once, probably on goods made in another country.
It's all moot anyway. We make decisions based on a plurality of votes, and we have a plurality of p
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And where does that money go? Pays people's salary.
If you're using the money on nonproductive stuff, then yes, you're "destroying" value.
You might quibble about whether the welfare mom's children will go on to create value - the (admittedly heartless) question is whether the future value will be a better investment that whatever value the taxpayer would have created (or would have been motivated to create, or a motivation to create or whatever).
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Rubbish. The government relies on the value of the individual's effort; that's the whole point of taxation. Taxation does not destroy the value created by the worker.
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The short answer is "yes".
When a dollar is spent, there is a multiplier effect. Money that gets into the hands of the lower income levels actually has the highest multiplier effect.
Did you know that the government spending that has the highest multiplier effect is an extension on unemployment benefits, at 1.83?
Government spending on subsidies to oil companies: less than 1
The multiplier effect
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Did you know that the government spending that has the highest multiplier effect is an extension on unemployment benefits, at 1.83?
You're limiting yourself to "government spending". I'm not sure where you got your factors (a google search returned only your comment). I don't doubt that unemployment benefits have the highest factor for government spending, but it doesn't follow that private investment wouldn't be higher still.
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But the welfare check is stimulus money in that that's what allow people on welfare to keep on stimulating. It's the basics of economy really, it astounds me that the boss of such a flourish business such as you are would ignore that.
For there to be welfare money the government must either collect it in taxes, loan money or print money and all three weaken the economy. There might be other good reasons for doing it but taking the money from one that wants to buy a 100$ champagne bottle and redistribute it as welfare to buy 100$ of bread and milk isn't stimulating the economy. In fact, due to the overhead of the system it's probably less than 100$ coming out the other side with no tangible value produced. The reason for welfare is much m
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What do you mean coloured, like, purple? Dude and you didn't call an ambulance?
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He's at the top... everybody else is below him and reports to him. What are they going to do if he says no, fire him?
The whole point of three way checks and balances in US politics is that *no one* is at the top. The other two branches explicitly do not report to the president, and ideally, he reports to the people and the Constitution. How well this works in practice has been the subject of occasional debate.
So yes, please fire him if you find he's not living up to expectations in a few years. Call your congresscritter about firing him sooner if it becomes dire. I suggest coming up with a better issue than this one,
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The phones physically can't operate on all networks, except in a few rare and expensive cases.
I think all US carriers are crooks (with the slight exception of T-Mobile), but I'm more concerned with pricing and features than whether a network carrier to which I don't subscribe lets me connect to their network for free.
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The great fear of the carriers is that they become dumb pipes. The lockdown of wireless bandwidth is simply shameful, but I can't imagine it changing without legislation.